Explaining American Civilization

I think as far as architecture goes the era and settlement history dominates which kind of folk architecture was chosen as well as new fads and developments that varied by region. As an example I'll use what I'm familiar with and talk about South Carolina. Charleston is the absolute jewel of South Carolina, is one of the most beautiful cities in the world which rivals the best of European cities, and is like an American Venice, and its not just my opinion but a worldwide opinion as it keeps winning the award of best city in the world in multiple magazines because of its rich in architecture, culture, cuisine, hospitality, history, and even folklore ghost stories (most of it stemming from the Gullah and their Voodoo practices, as well as pirates, and the cities violent history of slavery.)

So, to understand the architecture of Charleston one has to understand its history and that history starts in the Caribbean on the island of Barbados. Barbados was the richest colony in the British empire because it was ideally suited to growing sugar which was like oil is today in value. The island was dominated by an insanely rich, flamboyant, ruthless, and hedonistic oligarchy/aristocracy that owned vast sugar plantations and worked slaves to death in the fields to cultivate their sugar. These sugar planters were the very richest people in the British Empire and at the time, the people in the mother country of Britain worried that they would take over Britain because they were so powerful. They were actually so rich and powerful that one observer mentioned that they lived far better materially than the aristocracy back in England.

Eventually though, they ran into a problem, and that problem was that Barbados was a very small island, about 21 miles long, and it did not take long until they they were using all the land on the island for sugar and thus had nothing to leave their second sons. Many of the planters of Barbados were second sons of English aristocrats back home with nothing to inherit and so were sensitive to the plight of their own non first born sons, and, also being very greedy, and always wanting more money needed to expand into new lands. They did expand into new lands into places like Jamaica, Nevis, and other areas in the now English speaking Caribbean.

However eight English aristocrats who were also Barbados plantation owners called the Lord's proprietors looked to the North American mainland for opportunities to expand. Naturally, because modern day South Carolina has a subtropical climate very similar in many respects to the Caribbean, and on the coast is very tropical looking in flora (to the point where they filmed the Vietnam war scenes in Forrest Gump on one of South Carolinas' barrier islands), they decided to start their colony here. They named the colony after the restored monarch King Charles II (Carolinas being the Latin version of Charles), who had been restored to the throne after the whole debacle that followed the English Civil War where Puritan Oliver Cromwell killed the first King Charles and installed himself as dictator, not surprising because the founders of the colony were aristocrats and staunch Royalists and Anglicans (one theory of why South Carolina has a crescent moon on its flag with the horns tilted right is because in England this is the heraldic symbol for the second sons of English Gentry) and HATED Puritans (which is why the Deep South has an inborn antipathy to New England even today and has been the Yankees historical rival in American politics, culture wars, and actual wars. I keep trying to stress that Americans are not a homogenous culture or ethnic group.) which is ironic because most people in South Carolina today are Baptists and the Baptist denomination has its origins in Puritan radicalism.

The city that they founded that is the subject of this screed Charleston was also named after Charles II, and to understand why Charleston is such a beautiful city you must understand that the people who built it were very rich men, probably the richest men in the world at the time, with very refined, very European, very old world, aristocratic tastes, and that they were very hedonistic and decadent and built their city as their own private playground filling it with theaters, operas, punch houses, brothels, cock fighting rings, high end stores that sold them all of the latest goods from Europe, fine dining restaurants that sold exquisite cuisine, and anything at all that may please the senses. Likewise they did everything they could to make the city as stunningly beautiful as possible. The architecture that they used was typical of the kind of architecture you'd find throughout the American colonies, especially in the Caribbean. If you have ever played Assassins Creed black flag and wandered around the games' depiction of Havana Cuba, it looked an awful lot like that (and still does as the SC government has done everything in its power to make sure that Charleston still looks like it did in the colonial and Antebellum eras) except far more colorful (the famous pastel colors like on the cities' rainbow row). It also resembles New Orleans in Louisiana very closely (because it was settled from the French Caribbean) to the point where people that have been to both cities say that Charleston is like New Orleans without Bourbon Street (New Orleans' red light district) which basically means its New Orleans without all the sin.

Charleston was modeled on the capital of Barbados, Bridgetown in how it was laid out and planned, and later on as it went through history more architectural styles were added to it. French Huguenots were given refuge from that Catholic countries' persecution of them as a middle finger to their main rivals and thus the city has a major French influence (adding to its similarities with New Orleans), and also took in a lot of Sephardic Jews fleeing from the inquisition (though apart from a few synagogues they didn't have much of an influence on the architecture). Then, the Antebellum period happened and the Greek revival style mansions that are so iconic of my region started becoming all the rage and so there are many of that kind of architecture in the city also. The many styles of architecture inside of Charleston include Colonial, Georgian, Italianate, Antebellum, neo classical, Gothic revival style (popular because the aristocracy saw themselves as equivalent to Medieval Knights) among others.

A lot of the best houses in the city are of course the houses of the aristocratic families like the Draytons, the Heywards, the Middletons, and the like, and of course the great Anglican churches that the elite went to. Anyways this Anglo-Caribbean slave culture spread out through the Deep South en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South and spread a lot of the architectural styles through the region. The city of Savannah in Georgia is a city very much like Charleston and almost as beautiful though always playing second fiddle to it. Natchez in Mississippi is a very beautiful small city that is full of the best Antebellum plantation architecture in the entire country. New Orleans and South Louisiana by extension has many similarities as its Deep South by way of France but its really its own region.

Anyways I know that you are mostly interested in New England through Lovecraft and of course New England has beautiful architecture, no doubt about it. But if you ever are able to visit the United States, after visiting New England, id suggest that you swing down to South Carolina and visit the South Carolina Lowcountry by which I mean the coastal area from Myrtle Beach down to and including Savannah Georgia. By American standards this place is very exotic and very rich in culture and architecture. visit Myrtle Beach Georgetown, Charleston, Beaufort, Savannah, Hilton head, the barrier islands, the salt marshes, the plantations. Go on ghost tours, and tours regarding the Gullah, eat that Lowcountry cuisine, go alligator spotting etc. I love this place, just got back from Myrtle beach yesterday.